According to MMA Mania, the UFC signed Benjamin Brinsa. Brinsa is a welterweight from Germany, who goes by the nickname “The Hooligan”. His MMA record is 13-0 including 4 KOs and 7 submissions. These sound like the type of attributes that Dana White would love to have in the UFC, but there is a small issue that hovers above “The Hooligan”: his alleged ties to Neo-Nazi groups and yes, actual hooliganism.
Brinsa is a part of the hooligan group known as Scenario LOK and used to run a mail-order service for Neo-Nazi rock music. His MMA team, La Familia, also reportedly has ties to a local Neo-Nazi group in Germany, reports CagePotato.com. They also were able to translate a German article on Brinsa and his ties.
“Brinsa is a member of the right-hooligan group “Scenario LOK” from Leipzig and posed behind a banner reading “ultras LOK – National Resistance.” In addition, he was with Thomas Persdorf, a nationally known neo Nazi and operator of the shipment “Front Records,” registered as a director of a company that managed the site “Aryan Brotherhood.” According to information from the Leipzig anti-fascist magazine “Gamma,” he is said to have worked as a janitor in the “national center” in Leipzig-Lindenau. Brinsa received a stadium ban in Leipzig due to his violence. He and his friend Christopher “Joker” Henze, also a member of the right-hooligan group “Scenario LOK,” were received with open arms by La Familia and courted as “two powerful new additions” with “aggressive fighting style.”
It’s hard to believe that the UFC didn’t do any type of background check on Brinsa and think this wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe they simply saw the record and the nickname and thought they can make a bigger star out of Brinsa.
Brinsa was believed to make his UFC debut this Fall, but with this flood of information coming to light, his UFC debut may come later. If it even comes at all.